Historian who advanced an alternative theory that corruption among Leningrad leaders provoked the late-Stalinist purge
Andrei Sushkov is a Russian historian of the Soviet party-state power system and the administrative practices of regional nomenklatura. Drawing on primary sources from archives in the Urals, St. Petersburg, Karelia, and other regions, he advanced an alternative interpretation of the 'Leningrad Affair': the purge was provoked not only by elite power struggles but by widespread corruption and the private appropriation of state resources among Leningrad's leaders. His 2018 monograph 'The Leningrad Affair': A General Purge of the 'Cradle of the Revolution' is regarded as the most systematic treatment of the subject, reshaping a key debate in postwar Stalinist political history.
Career Timeline
- 1993–1998Student, History Faculty, Nizhny Tagil State Pedagogical Institute
- 1998–2001Doctoral student, Institute of History and Archaeology, Ural Branch of RAS
- 2003Candidate of Historical Sciences (dissertation: Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, 1957–1964)
- 2003–2004Senior lecturer, Nizhny Tagil State Social-Pedagogical Academy
- 2004–2006Researcher, Institute of History and Archaeology, Ural Branch of RAS
- 2007–현재Senior researcher, Institute of History and Archaeology, Ural Branch of RAS